Ms Vra Jourov?:

I will answer now and then the Senator can tell me what is missing.

The Senator asked about political advertising in respect of activism or NGOs, if I may simplify the question in that way. We had a really big headache when working on this regulation. There were four things we had to decide how to formulate. One was time and whether to cover the whole time or to accept the fact that there is now permanent political campaigning. The experts in marketing, political marketing especially, tell us to forget about covering only some campaign time or three weeks before elections. The campaign is permanent. We agreed and we do not define any special rules for the time before elections.

The second thing was the microtargeting. I have spoken about that. There was a big discussion between "let us not touch it" and "let us ban everything". Now among the voices from the European Parliament are those who would like to go farther.

The Senator asked about civil society organisations. We scrutinised very well what the reality looks like and found that in every member state there are civil society organisations which try to influence electoral preferences. It is legitimate, so we said it was okay and that we would not narrow the space for such organisations. We just want full transparency. When an NGO runs a political programme with the aim of influencing elections, we want such actors to be transparent about who pays for that, how much and in which elections. They are the parameters for transparency. That is it. We are not banning or shutting down anything. I expected very assertive or negative reactions from the side of civil society, but when they read through the text and found out that the only thing we require is transparency, they welcomed that. This legislation is still a work in progress, however, so we might see some changes proposed from the side of the member states. It is, however, already at an advanced stage, and the Commission, represented by me, will insist that we propose something which is balanced and which seeks to increase the transparency of advertising.

Coming to the Senator's second point about the legal obstacles, we have seen over years the trend of shrinking space for civil society. It can be a somewhat slow process, even an unintended one or one caused by financial pressure, or it can be intentional in that the leaders of the state are not comfortable with the people, the activists, the representatives of the NGOs. I will not name and shame, but members can use their imagination. There are ways to intentionally shrink further that space, including by legal obstacles, as was the case in Hungary, which we put to the European Court of Justice, which in turn has already given the decision that Hungary should change the laws which impose obligations on civil society organisations, obligations which have led to a very difficult existence and functioning for such organisations in Hungary. ECJ rulings have the power of precedent, yes?